Count On Me, Like You Count The Stars
by VamphigherQueen
Summary: Kagome sees her best friend Inuyasha passing by and the two have a conversation about love and Valentine's day that turned out to be quite life-changing. What kind of words could they possibly have exchanged? Find out in this V-day themed Oneshot


**Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. I'm not a big fan of this day, but I wanted to write this oneshot. Enjoy!**

**xoxo**

**-VQ**

* * *

Kagome was sitting on the steps of her family's shrine when a familiar boy in a red hoodie turned the corner.

"Hey! Inuyasha!" She called out to him.

He looked up slowly and lifted his hood. "Hey, what's up?" He asked as he walked up a couple of steps towards her.

"Where are you coming from?" She asked curiously as she tucked her fingers into her sweater sleeve.

"Oh I uh…just got off work." He said, nodding his head to the side. "I took an extra shift today to help my mother with the bills."

"I see."

"Why are you just sitting out here? It's kind of cold."

Kagome shrugged and grasped her sweater sleeves tighter until her silver painted fingernails began to poke through the holes. "I hate Valentine's day. It always makes me feel kind of sad."

Inuyasha scrunched his mouth to the side and sighed as he lifted his hood back up over his dog demon ears.

"With mom and grandpa being widows, Sota being totally clueless to the holiday and me…well I've never even been asked out on a date." She continued. "It's kind of pathetic, actually."

"None of that sounds pathetic." He said as he went up a few more steps and took a seat next to Kagome. "The only thing pathetic is love."

"What makes you say that? Love is a beautiful thing."

There was silence as a car raced by. Inuyasha let out a slight chuckle that followed the gentle clicking sound of a traffic light.

"Love is tragic. It always has a sad ending. Death, a bad break-up, 'it's not you it's me.' And all it does is leave a bunch of lingering feelings. Like how one star explodes and turns into a bunch of other stars. "

"Um…I don't think that's how stars work, but I get your point. It's just…" Kagome sighed. "I want to fall in love just once. Even if it ends, I want to know what it feels like to live in that moment. To know someone feels something for me and only me."

"Why would you intentionally want to find something that's only going to end up hurting you?" He asked in a confused and slightly angered tone.

"What would you know?!" Kagome fired, brows furrowed and cheeks burning red.

"You think I haven't been in love before?!" He said, slightly louder, causing Kagome to move back slightly.

Inuyasha loosened up his tense shoulders and rested his hands on the stairs. "Kagome, when you fall in love, you feel like you're floating. Then when it ends, you just…hit the ground. Then you have to take time for the wounds to heal, but those wounds leave scars. Sometimes permanent damage." He folded his arms and looked up at the sky. "That's why I don't care for the idea of love."

"So you're just giving up?"

He looked at her with a baffled look on his face. "Huh?"

"You can't just turn off your feelings like a robot! You have to keep on loving. All that pain is just for experience. I may not have ever felt love, but I have felt pain before. I have lost someone I cared for deeply and awful things and tragedy have hurt me. I may not know romance, but I know love. You can't stop love."

Inuyasha laughed and laid his head on the step. "You sound so stupid. All I'm trying to tell you is that you should avoid relationships altogether. That's what I'm doing."

"So even if you had feelings for someone, you'd simply ignore them because you're afraid to have your heart broken?"

"I'm not afraid! I just…" Inuyasha trailed off as he watched a shooting star go by. "I fell in love again. I don't know if ignoring it is more painful than loving, but they both hurt pretty damn bad! A-and I don't want to find out if the ending will be more tragic than my first love."

Kagome gasped as her eyes twinkled in the starlight. "You fell in love? With who?"

"I-I can't say. It's personal."

"You and I have been best friends for three years and you've been keeping this secret from me—"

"For three years." He sighed and sat up. "I need to get home. You should go inside. It's getting colder."

"Um…sure." Kagome stood slowly and headed up the steps to her house. "Goodnight."

Inuyasha began to walk down the stairs as Kagome continued to walk up.

She suddenly turned around quickly. "Wait, Inuyasha!" She shouted out.

He stopped before reaching the third to last step and looked at her. "What is it?"

"Promise you'll tell me one day, okay? Best friends shouldn't keep secrets like that!"

"I can't promise that." He said as he turned back around. "If I do, it could ruin our friendship."

Kagome stood at the top of the steps confused, wondering what Inuyasha meant. She watched as he crossed the street and headed into a building down the block.

She turned around and went into her house. She went upstairs to her bedroom and sat down on her bed. The conversation she had with Inuyasha was weighing on her mind. Especially the last part.

"What did he mean by that?"

Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. "He couldn't be talking about—no way!" She told herself as she shook her head repeatedly. "Why would he ever fall in love with me?!"

'Wishful thinking, I'll assume.' She thought to herself as she walked over to the window and looked out at the stars. She sat there for a while until her phone startled her out of her daze.

She opened the text message from Inuyasha and instantly started to cry.

"_It's been you all along. I refuse to be the first one to give you those scars. The idea of forever seems impossible to me, and I don't want to drag you into a stupid fantasy just because of the feelings I have for you. I'm sorry."_

She wiped off her tears, bit her bottom lip and began to reply instantly.

"_You've always meant a lot to me. Forever may be a stupid fantasy but isn't love all about living your dreams together? How far we make it is up to us, right? You could just give it a chance. I would be willing to take the leap of faith with you."_

Kagome sat impatiently, tapping her foot as she waited for Inuyasha to respond.

10 minutes…

30 minutes…

2 hours…

Kagome rested her body against the window. "What a jerk! Why doesn't he—" Her sentence was interrupted by her own scream when she heard a knock on her window.

Kagome turned to see Inuyasha on her ledge. She quickly opened the window and allowed him in. "You scared me! You idiot!" She yelled as she hit him over the head with her phone.

Inuyasha put his hands in his hoodie pockets and shrugged. "Here, stupid." He said as he handed her a jewelry box. "I didn't think I'd see you today so I was gonna give it to you tomorrow."

Kagome opened the box and inside was a pair of diamond heart shaped earrings. She gasped as she immediately put them in her ears. "You got the ones I was staring at in the window!" She said happily as she ran into his arms. "Thank you!"

She quickly pulled away and sat on her bed. The excited smile on her face flipped upside down as she looked down at her feet. "You never answered my text."

"I wanted to tell you in person that I still think the idea of love is stupid. But it's like you said…I can't stop it. I Guess being in love with you isn't so bad."

"Well, what if it gets bad?"

He sat on the bed next to her and shrugged. "Then I'll lose everything. If you're willing to fall, I'll jump with you."

Kagome smiled and kissed his cheek. "You've changed Valentine's day for me forever."

"I hope this doesn't turn out to be a bad thing."

She grabbed his hand and giggled. "Only time will tell."


End file.
